Mediations #19: Social Media Impaired My Learning
Learning from social media was my excuse to keep consuming while lying down on my couch.
One lie I used to tell myself was that I was learning a lot from social media or content online. I used this lie as an excuse to keep consuming while lying down on my couch. Later, I realized that this was only a delusion. After shutting down social media, I realized my learning was an illusion, and it is also impaired. I’m still trying to fix it.
It’s hard.
The “useful” information we receive on social media looks useful at first. The pleasure and satisfaction come from seeing something we didn’t even know existed. Despite the dopamine rush that comes from discovery, we continue with our lives without any change. For example, when I discovered in-cockpit-view flight videos, I “learned” a lot about how to pilot an aircraft. I watched, again and again, how pilots lift off and land a plane. Yet, I still can’t even imagine myself piloting an aircraft. I built a mastery, but a false one.
The other example of false mastery is life hacks—techniques that promise to help you use your time and life more efficiently. Learning how to cut a cucumber in a way that saves 200 milliseconds is not something I should be worried about. The time I could save from cutting cucumbers in the next decade was already lost while watching that three-minute video. I’m not a professional chef, but I now have an illusion of competence. I consumed information, although I could already cut a cucumber.
Consuming information doesn’t equate to building knowledge. They are fundamentally different. According to Barbara Oakley, a Distinguished Professor of Engineering at Oakland University and the instructor of one of the most popular online courses, Learning How to Learn, building knowledge or skill requires focused and unfocused thinking, spaced repetition and deliberate practice with increasing levels of challenge while applying information, making mistakes and correcting them one by one. When I read online, watch a short video, or listen to a podcast, I do neither of these, but somehow, my brain remembers the stupid cat video I watched five years ago.
When I dig into the reasons, it’s obvious why; it actually involves elements of learning. I watch the video multiple times (focused learning), share the cat video with friends, and we watch it again (spaced repetition) and talk about it while creating a social bonding experience (applying information on different levels). Yet, we don’t do the same with any other information.
Most of the “useful” information we consume online becomes neglected and quickly forgotten because we see it when lying down on the couch—the moment we want to do the least—or right before we get off the bus, train, or taxi, making it impossible to act on new info. We don’t share these with friends or talk about them. We only delude ourselves with a crack of information, so we have something to say in social groups or compete in pub quizzes (if only we remember it).
Some claim that they use social media productively: following accounts that share great and informational content, and optimizing their feeds by following certain accounts and regularly blocking accounts that share either junk or useless content. However, they forget that the lack of information is not the problem anymore; the excess of it is. Content consumption is not the solution; learning selectively is.
I believe there is one group of people who solve this problem: using social media for inspiration, nothing else. For example, someone who is into pottery can be inspired by a new idea they see on social media and try the concept themselves later on. The real learning is still offline. Online is only the inspiration. They have no intention of learning from there and don’t mix up two concepts with each other.
So, knowing these, how can I fix my learning?
Two steps I have already taken: quit social media and live without algorithms. I doubt these alone will fix my learning.
I’ll share when I take another step.